Better to light a single candle
by Chris Kenworthy
Summary: Max's attempt to heal Alex after the car crash doesn't quite fail... but all of Alex's friends have to come together to help guide him out of a gray area between death and life.
1. Chapter 1

Candle

"He'll need to use his power, to open the doors..."

And sure enough, Max Evans' hand rested over the lock at the back of the coroner's office van for what seemed a long moment, before he pulled both doors open wide, waited a few seconds, then climbed inside and pulled them shut again behind him. It was a long, silent pause, as if the entire world was holding its breath, before any of them so much as moved. One of Maria's hands was spread slantwise across her mouth and the lower part of her face, in a mannerism that showed the extreme anxiety she was feeling. Finally, as if to fight off the oppression of silence, Isabel choked out a continuation of her retelling of the plan.

"He'll take a deep breath, put his hand on his chest -- and bring him back to life." Somehow none of them really believed it could be that easy, but there was no way anybody could say not to try for Alex's sake.

Maria bent her head forward to rest her chin on Liz's shoulder, overcome with the tension of waiting, and Liz wrapped one arm around her taller friend's neck in an oddly angled hug, trying to lend as much emotional support as she could.

"And Alex will sit up suddenly," Isabel continued, "and Max will jump back -- and the whole van will shake a little." Invisibly, faint tears were stinging at the corner of her eyes, but no matter how many people were staring intently at that black van, willing it to shudder with all of their hearts, it remained quite still. Kyle's head drooped, overcome with doubt. "The whole... the whole van will *shake*," Izzie repeated, as if the vehicle were an ill-prepared actor who had forgotten his cue line.

Then the van did quaver a little, and the doors opened again, but soon it became clear that the motion had only been from Max's moving inside, and that he was alone. No tall lanky boy with ears jutting out at the sides of his head followed. But he seemed excited, and Isabel allowed herself to wonder if Alex couldn't stand up and walk so quickly after being healed. Was it possible that he was now lying in the van, alive?? She hurried forward to meet Max as quickly as possible, heedless of the plan, which called for all of them to hang back in the shadows as much as possible, to avoid calling any unusual attention to the van or the situation. "Did you..." She couldn't finish the question.

Max shook his head, and her heart sank. But the breathless words that he panted out after a second made her spirits rebound, if only slightly. "Won't... won't be as easy as I thought, Izzie."

She tried to make sense of that. "But... but you think that there's a way??" There HAD to be some way. "What... what do you need, how do we do it then??"

Max looked around, and gestured the rest of the group closer. "The first thing we need is time -- time to talk about a lot of deep and important stuff, without anyone interrupting, or taking his body away to do space knows what with it. I've bought us that time already on the biological end... his body isn't decaying or losing viability or anything like that. But to go any further..." Liz, Maria, and Kyle had come near by this point, but Michael and Tess were still hanging back, and Max gestured to his oldest male compadre more imperatively. Michael stepped near a little uncertainly. "We need to take the van with us, I think. You okay being the wheel man??"

Michael stared at him in shock. "Steal the coroner's van??"

Max nodded, full of confidence on this one point at least. "Yeah. The keys are in there. We need to keep Alex safe, and moving him into another car could be tricky. This way, they might not think it was him we were after." At this point, it seemed to occur to him how what he was asking might sound... to drive away with Alex in an official county vehicle. "If you've got a problem with it, man, then..."

He didn't have to finish that thought. "No, I think I'm your guy. Just wanted to make sure."

"Alright." Max tossed a key ring at Kyle. "Think you can grab the Jeep, man? Just follow Tess... I think we should head up to the pod chamber for this. Isabel, Maria, Liz... you're in the back with me??"

"Just try and stop us," Maria said, grabbing at Liz's hand. Liz and Isabel nodded their agreement fiercely. The other two girls couldn't possibly understand what was going on any more than Isabel did, but they had heard enough to see that Max had the beginnings of a plan, of something that could save Alex... and apparently he needed their help or approval with it. Isabel knew that there could hardly be anything she couldn't do, anything she wouldn't agree to, to make sure that he'd be all right.

As Kyle and Tess hurried off to where the respective cars had been parked, (except for the Jetta, which would be okay remaining in the area,) Max led the rest of them off towards the back door to the town hall, from which Jim Valenti emerged to find out what the heck was going on. Max explained quite tersely to him about how they needed more time with Alex, and how they were going to take the van.

He blanched for a bit, but didn't argue. "I might be able to buy you a little time. There's a young medical student working for the C.O. who's off tonight -- Terry Ryan, and he's got the same build and hair color as Michael. If I tell them that I saw Terry getting into the van, they might think that he had official business for it or was borrowing it for a personal emergency, not realizing that there was a body in the back. That should keep Hanson from tearing out of here after you on red alert."

Max nodded. "Thanks. That should help, yeah." With a quick wave, he headed back into the van, the girls following him and Michael getting into the drivers' seat. One of the Coroners' attendants rushed out of the door past Jim just as they were pulling out of the parking lot, screaming something that couldn't quite be heard over the motor and gesturing quite emphatically.

As Michael turned onto the main road north, Isabel faced Max down. "Alright, what's going on here?? You said it would be harder than you thought, but obviously you have some sort of plan. Start talking *now*. I can't wait until we're all up at the pod chamber for details."

"Umm, alright, okay," Max agreed. "I'm not quite sure how to start, but... we all suspected that it would be harder to bring back somebody who was medically dead... dead for, what, for ten minutes at least or more, compared to healing somebody alive, or saving someone at the point of death, like I did for Liz and for Kyle." Isabel nodded. "Some things were actually easier than I thought they would be... fighting back rigor mortis and nervous... calcification, or whatever the right term for it is. In the loosest possible meaning of the term, I think I might even have Alex alive again... he's breathing now, at least, and his heart is beating." Isabel's breath caught in surprise, and she noticed Maria squeal a little and grab onto Liz hopefully.

But Liz's face showed much more caution and even a bit of fatalistic pessimism. "Yeah, that's life in a way, Max, but not much of a life in terms of quality. What about brain activity?? Is Alex brain-dead now??"

"Umm..." Max shuffled across the back of the van towards Liz, and then looked down and blushed, as if remembering that she might not be too comfortable being close to him considering how things had worked out at the prom. But after looking down for a second, she nodded, and Max took that as an encouraging sign, slowly reaching out and taking her hand. "I guess that's one way to put it. Alex's brain is completely normal and healthy in structure now, as nearly as I can tell. But the electrical and neural activity that mark a healthy brain is... extremely low at best, right now. I hope we can remedy that, together. But there's more going on, and I need to figure out some way to explain it to you guys."

"Take your time," Isabel insisted. "I understand that this is important. If you haven't got it figured out by the time we make Puhlman ranch, we can continue on inside the Chamber."

"Yeah, thanks," Max told her, and sank into a moderately deep pensive look for a while. There was no way to see the road except for a small opening up into the front of the van, and Isabel couldn't see very well through it from where she was. But they had to be past the city limits by now... maybe well past them. It was a little hard to judge time too well, with all of this other stuff going on.

"When I was connected to... to Alex," Max started, "after I'd fixed up the most pressing immediate problems, I started to sense something. What-- what doctors..." He frowned, reconsidered for a long moment, and started again. "What doctors can detect with EEGs and MRIs and all kinds of other complicated machines and as yet have only vague theories to understand, my... my gifts allow me to sense much more clearly, and sometimes to understand better. I think I got to understand something when I was trying to heal Alex."

There was a long-ish pause, and Maria's voice came softly. Tenderly offering a cue, if Max wanted to take it. "What did it show you, Max??"

He groaned. "It's... it's so hard to find the words. What is life? What is death??" After a few seconds, he turned to look at the girls. "If any of you can come up with an answer to either question, it might help me figure out what I need to say."

"Umm, okay," Liz muttered softly. "Death is... is the cessation of life, in a cell, an organ, or a living creature. For mammals, like humans -- well, everything stops. The heart stops beating, the brain stops sending nervous signals, the blood stops flowing and individual cells starve for lack of fresh food and oxygen. Generally considered to be irreversible, as in, if an organism can come back from a state of inactivity, that state does not meet the textbook definition of death. I guess that's something we're going to settle for ourselves tonight."

"Okay, that's good as a starting point, thanks Liz," Max muttered. "Death is when everything stops. There are all kinds of things that are going on inside a living person, just to keep them living. Not just obvious things like the heart beating, lungs breathing, blood flowing, and nervous signals in the brain. A human body is a mass of incredibly complicated interdependences... the blood itself, for example, is a complicated soup of dissolved salts, suspended organic molecules, tiny cells, nutrients, all kinds of other things, and it has to be kept rigidly within certain parameters. Glands are always producing hormones and other vital substances that are required for use elsewhere. Certain autonomous muscles have to be active for all kinds of reasons... and not just active, but operating according to their own very specific requirements. Waste products have to be, erm, cleaned up before they poison living tissue. Immune response has to be always performing at top capacity, or very nearly, just to keep viruses and bacteria all around us from running amok."

"And the brain and nervous system themselves... that's a machine, a system thousands or millions of times more complicated than any computer than human beings have put together out of silicon chips and conductors and memory transistors and what-have-you. An incredible system of electrical impulses and chemical reactions that..."

Isabel interrupted him. "I think I see what you're trying to say. You've got Alex's body in running order, more or less. But you have no notion how to get all of these interdependent processes running together, well enough for him to really LIVE."

Max nodded, and Liz smiled sadly at him. "It's... this is an odd analogy maybe, but his body is like a candle. It's all ready to get going, but that doesn't change the fact that the wick has been snuffed out. Nothing within that closed system makes the candle capable of spontaneously bursting into flame, no matter how physically ready to burn it is." He laughed hollowly. "And I don't know how to strike a new spark."

Maria blurted it out. "But you don't need to!! You can light a candle from another, that's already burning. We're alive... can you... could you, I mean, use one of our flames to light Alex again?? Or is that incredibly naive to suggest??"

Max turned to look at her. "No. It's not naive. I had the same idea. I even tried to use my own 'spark' as it were, to let that spread to Alex. But it didn't work, possibly because when my powers are active, they block off my own energy from affecting him in that way... or something like that. There are several possible reasons. But I have hopes that I might be able to do better with... with someone else as the 'donor flame.'"

Liz thought about that for a second. "It should probably be someone human, actually... not trying to shut you out as such, Isabel, because I know that you'd love to be able to be the one to do this for him... but a hybrid body might work in different ways than Alex's would, so trying to use yours as his candle model..."

"As far as that goes, you're not quite human anymore, Liz," Maria said. "He and I were the last ones left who were unaltered Homo sapiens, because Max..." And then she trailed off, a new factor occurring to her.

"If Liz and Kyle have been 'changed' because I saved their lives, then Alex will be too, by the time that I'm through with them," Max said, seeing it. "Because he was further gone than either of them. Maybe that alteration, making his body not quite human, has happened already when I connected to it and prepared it."

"But... but Ava made it sound like it was a gradual thing," Isabel pointed out. "Not like Liz changed all of a sudden when you healed her, but that it was something she'd be growing into over the next few years. Liz has had over a year and a half to change since you saved her life, and Kyle nearly a year. Maybe Maria would be a better match for Alex *right now*. We can't mess this up."

Max spread his hands. "Well, I'm not sure how to pick the right way to go, I admit. It seems tempting to go the second way... to guess that the people whose lives were already saved, because we were here, will be the ones who can help save Alex. But that might just be something that appeals to my sense of the fitness of things, not the actual circumstances of the situation."

"We're... we're slowing down," Liz noticed. "Are we up at the pod chamber already?"

Max looked around, but here in the back of the van there wasn't any easy way to see outside. Frustrated, he made a familiar gesture with his hand and a partition that could normally only be controlled from the driver's seat rolled down. He saw Michael's face, and a bit of a familiar rocky skyline. "Coming up towards the hill, at least." Obviously they couldn't drive any cars up to the Pod Chamber itself, because the path was too narrow - and because even if they could, leaving vehicles parked there might serve to draw attention.

"Tess and Kyle are right behind us," Maria pointed out, peering through the little back window in the back door of the van.

"Okay," Max agreed. "We'll have to be very careful bringing Alex up the path."

"No-one's around," Isabel pointed out. "We can probably levitate him... if we can keep careful enough control over our powers. I think that might be less risky than doing it the human way."

Max considered that. "Yeah, I think it's worth a try at least. If we can't balance the power well enough to keep him floating steadily, then it shouldn't be hard to figure that out before he gets hurt any more."

And that was what they did. With all four young hybrids using their powers, they were able to carry Alex quite gently through midair... if ever one of their levels of lift or thrust wavered, the other three were able to compensate immediately. Up at the top of the path, Max let the other three keep him hovering while he opened up the door.

Then, as Alex lay on the pod chamber floor, (but NOT quite in the same spot where Nasedo had died - everybody quietly made sure of that,) the four of them who had been talking in the back of the coroner's van brought Michael, Tess, and Kyle up to speed on Max's plan.

"Well, I have to admit, the first thing that passes through my mind," Kyle said slowly, "is -- did Alex really die? Did his spirit, his soul, move on to some kind of afterlife, and if so, is it right to bring him back? Would all of him even COME back??"

"I... I have to believe that no matter who or what creates and guides our souls, it's smart enough to send them back if the body and brain are whole," Liz said. "As far as whether it's right for us to decide that Alex should live and not die..." She let a short sob out of nowhere and bowed her head. "Maybe this makes me a hypocrite, in light of what I told you at Christmas, Max, but I don't care. For a guy like Alex to be killed in a car crash with his whole life ahead of him..." Liz's chest heaved again, and Maria crossed over to embrace her silently, wrapping a supportive arm around her old friend's shoulders. "If *that*, if Alex's death was part of anybody's grand master plan, then I want no part of it, and I'd take my chances with black magic or what-the-hell-ever could bring him back."

"Maybe... maybe it's part of the Divine plan that you guys are here, now," Maria said softly. "Like Max was there to save Liz when she got shot, and how Michael and Liz and me helped him cure the Christmas children."

There was an awkward silence, and Kyle shuffled his feet, leaning against the chamber wall. "Okay... I'll accept that reasoning, I guess." It was obvious that Alex's death had shaken him nearly as much as anybody, even if the two boys hadn't known each other terribly well.

"Are there any other objections or concerns?" Max asked. "We've got some time."

"Okay, well, speaking of souls," Michael put in. "Suppose you do the spark donation routine, and pick Maria as donor, just for the sake of argument. Is there *any* possibility that she'll lose something, some part of herself that can't be recovered. A fragment of her soul, whatever that is, or her essence. And, in a similar vein, should we be at all worried about Alex coming back, but not being himself as much as before, because there's some of Maria, or Liz or whoever else is the donor, stuck in there with him."

"I... I don't think so," Max said. "I don't really know what souls are, but I'm *not* going to be trying to transfer anything psychic or spiritual in this operation - in fact, since you mentioned it, I'll try like hell to avoid that. I don't think any of us are particularly eager to get Alex back if that's the price... if it's not really HIM that wakes up." He looked around for nods of agreement... it took a while to get any from Liz, but eventually even she agreed. Isabel, though her eyes were tearing up, had been one of the first, and she had even muttered quiet words of agreement.

"A bit of a computer analogy, which seems appropriate considering Alex's talents in that direction," Isabel whispered. "All that you need, and intend, to copy over is the boot-up instructions for Alex's body, which everybody, or at least everybody on the same version, has the same way. What made Alex unique is his higher-level software -- that made up his personality, his character, his memories... and those are safe in his hard drive."

"Pretty... pretty much." Max took a deep breath. "There might be some damage there... oxygen loss in the brain from when he wasn't breathing. I've tried to repair that as well as I can, and may have to do more... but I *won't* repair any of that with donation."

"Ooh," Liz took a deep breath. "Okay, let's talk about the damage, though. What if you can't fix it? What if it's worse than you thought??" She sighed. "I... I want Alex back like anything, but as you said... if he's not -- not 'right' within certain criteria, then it's worse than nothing. And I'm not sure where the line is, but bringing him back with major brain damage might be on the other side of it." She shuddered.

"I... I wish I could say for sure," Max whispered hauntedly. "I can get a sense of the damage, and make a guess at how much more repairs can be made once the rest of his body's firing on all cylinders. But I'm less sure what it all *means* until we can get him to wake up." He looked at Liz. "I... I really believe that there's only a slim chance that he... that he'll face any kind of serious impairment. I don't think I could bear to do this if I wasn't nearly sure."

"Oh... okay," Liz managed to choke out. "I'd have appreciated certainties, of course, but sometimes life doesn't work that way. I'd rather roll the dice than... than not even try."

"Yeah," Maria muttered. "I'm... I'm kind of overwhelmed by all of the uncertainties and dangers, but I still feel like it's better to take our best shot, for Alex's sake, than to just -- just go back to town and bury him."

"Or..." Isabel gulped loudly, and everyone else turned to look at her. "I mean... they wouldn't -- they wouldn't bury him like this, now that he's breathing again, would they?"

"Prob... probably not, for a while at least," Max answered slowly. "If he was discovered by the authorities like this, they'd take him to the hospital, and hook him up to life support that would do most of what I'm doing now, keeping his heart beating and his lungs drawing breath. And... and his parents would probably let him lie like that for a while, hoping against hope that he'd come out of it on his own..."

"That's not an answer," Michael insisted. "If... if we can't agree to bring him back tonight, then we... we'll need to put him back, the same way that Max found him."

"You're talking about killing him again!" Maria flared. "Well, half-killing anyway, since he's not all the way alive now. But..."

"Come on, you two, the last thing we need right now is an argument," Isabel said. "Umm... but I have to say I'm not sure what the next thing we need is."

"One more call... does anybody have an objection to going ahead with the candle procedure?" Tess asked, the first time she'd spoken since they'd left on the drive.

"Well, we'd still need to decide on who," Max said softly.

"Aside from that?" Isabel asked.

There was a long silence, where nobody spoke up. "Okay. Max... is there any way that you can tell, the same way you knew what needed to be done with Alex, who'd be the best donor flame? Maybe you could connect to Kyle and Maria, and Liz, and see if any of them seems more compatible with what needs to be done for Alex."

"Umm... it's worth a try... if all three of them will agree to the contact, that is."

"Of course," Maria nearly shouted, and Liz nodded.

After a second, Kyle shrugged. "If you think it would help, then go ahead, by all means." After a long pause, he apparently decided he had to defend his reaction. "I... I'll do whatever I can to help Alex, but I'm not wild about getting touched with alien powers. I've never made any secret about that. This doesn't sound exactly like it's directly helping Alex, just a little bit of make-work to delay because nobody wants to make a clear decision. But if you girls want to go through with the test, then I won't object."

"Alright," Max said, and stepped up to Kyle first. "Just relax and look in my eyes." Kyle did, and Max touched his arm, holding the pose for maybe fifteen seconds before moving on to Maria, and then finally Liz.

"So... come on, could you tell anything?" Isabel asked as Max stood facing away from all of them, deep in thought. "Sorry, I didn't mean to rush you... just getting very anxious by this point."

"No, it's okay," he told her. "I was stalling, I think." He took a deep breath. "Not completely sure, but based on the best interpretation I could make of what I saw... Maria looks like the best match."

"Oh, okay," Liz mumbled. "There it is, I guess."

"Not doubting you," Michael spoke up, "but would connecting to Alex again make the interpretation clearer?"

But Max shook his head. "I've been connecting to him nearly constantly for over an hour. I'm about as familiar with his system, and his requirements, as I could ever possibly be."

"Alright, then what happens next, in terms of logistics?" Isabel asked. "Do... do you need Maria to lie down next to Alex or something??"

Max looked at Maria, as if searching her eyes for any tiny signal that she wanted to back out... he saw fear there, but also courage and determination, and love for her old friend. "Yeah... yeah, that sounds good. Not too close to him, maybe four feet away. Umm... just far enough away that someone could walk between them carefully." Maria sat down on the floor near where Alex was, and when Max nodded, she stretched her feet out in front of her and laid her back and head down flat.

"Michael, Isabel?" Max asked next. "I... I'd like the two of you to try and monitor what's going on, as best you can. Take... take healing stones, just in case they might be helpful. Liz, you take one too - you'll be backing me up, if that's okay."

"Okay?" For a second Liz seemed about to laugh at the question. "Hell yeah, I've got your back." She smiled fiercely while taking an amber crystal out of the box.

"What... what about Kyle and me, Max?" Tess asked softly, her voice calm and slightly distant. "We... um, well, I want to help too if I can."

Max looked at her, and his mouth quirked slightly. "Umm... I d-- actually, maybe you can help just by staying in reserve. Not committing yourselves to anything, watching the entire operation. I don't know exactly what's going to happen, once we get started."

"All... all right," Kyle replied, and Tess nodded. Since there were two healing stones left, they each took one, and tried to stay out of the way while still being able to see what was happening.

Max knelt down and took a deep breath, feeling as if there would probably never be a more important or complex occasion to use his alien powers. First he reached out, connected to Maria, and examined the living processes of her body in as much detail as he possibly could without interfering. This was something that he'd never had to do before... he'd fixed localized problems, and even some wider-area ones, but never tried to grasp the way a human body operated as a totality. The little nuances of tissue interactions, bloodstream chemistry maintenance, etcetera kept coming and coming until he despaired of ever remembering them all. Worse still, if he had to DO all of that at once, there was no way he could ever work quickly enough, even with his powers, to succeed, to bring Alex back into the world they walked through.

But maybe... maybe it didn't have to be all at once. Perhaps certain basic levels of 'the flame' could be struck first, which would sustain themselves long enough to feed higher levels, and so on, and so on. Even on those lowest levels, the flame wouldn't burn forever without feed-forward interaction from the higher reaches, but maybe... just maybe, if he was quick enough?

So, what was the lowest level? Nervous activity? A stronger heartbeat, more regular breathing? Better hormone balances? Waste extraction?? In a brilliant, if suspicious intuitive flash, Max realized that thinking in those clinical, medical terms might be counterproductive. What he needed to do was just get in tune with Alex's body on a more primal level, to determine what it needed without naming those things, without thinking about them with human words, or any words at all.

He wasn't really sure that this approach would work, but it seemed better than any other alternative. Taking a deep breath, he connected with Alex, examining his near-death state in such a total, all-encompassing way that Max felt as if he was approaching death himself. Once he had as much information as he could hold, when he could feel it brimming through his body and mind and soul, he let a part of his attention turn to Maria and start to draw from her what Alex needed.

Michael's cry was the first clue that something had already gone wrong, and that in itself immediately paid off for the decision to have Maria watched over by her boyfriend during the process. Climbing slightly out of his primal state of mind, Max was able to see part of his mistake. He had drawn too strongly from Maria's 'flame', from her life processes, eager to begin work on Alex, and had neglected to take into account that he needed to feed from his donor slowly, so as to not blow out or stifle the flame of her own life.

But it was a mistake that he would not make twice... (once was more than enough!) and as Max stopped drawing from Maria entirely for a long moment, waiting ten seconds, twenty... he couldn't detect that he had really hurt her. Starting to 'pull' from so many of her life processes at the same time had been shocking, maybe painful, but he had been stopped before doing any kind of permanent damage. Sighing internally, Max returned to the job at hand, knowing that he couldn't afford any more stupid blunders like that.

Once more, sense what Alex needed. Pull it from Maria's system, but slowly... slowly enough that she could sustain it, and bear it. On one level, Max didn't think that he was actually taking energy or vitality out of Maria's body, just information... but as Heisenberg had discovered, to take information, on such a deep level, was unavoidably to make changes. You could not perceive fully the position of something small without altering its velocity, and vice versa, and there were many small, tiny things inside any living body, whose smallness was fundamental to their living properties. Life *was* quantum.

From another perspective, Max was starting to wonder if the life energy he was working with, the 'spark' was something that did have an existence in itself, aside from its status as order and information... something that Maria could produce more of, but only if not too much of it was taken away. Something, maybe, that every drop of was somehow precious, in a way that Max couldn't really understand... that had been so grievously lost when Alex's car collided with another, and that Maria would not regenerate precisely as she had lost... that she could not donate precisely as ALEX had lost. For an instant, Max froze in the middle of what he was doing, looking for the sign of what they had all talked of... that they were doing something that went flatly against the laws of life and death, that Alex, if he came back at all, would come back definitely *wrong.*

But... but it didn't seem so to him. Alex would not be precisely as he was, nor would Maria, once this work was done... if it WAS done, and maybe, for her, even if it wasn't. But that didn't seem to be a great shame or loss... it might even serve as the source of a meaningful bond between the two of them. Max returned to work, fanning up the flame in Alex's body, bringing it closer back to full life.

He was able to *feel*, somehow, Isabel's rising hope as she felt Alex's spark grow within him... and then those same hopes flagged as Max ran out of new spark to add into his system, and what was there started to fade and tremble as he went back to slowly, so slowly, draw more out of Maria. But it didn't fade too far before he was able to start building it brighter again.

And then, suddenly, disaster struck. Max's own reserves suddenly were running low... he hadn't realized how much energy he'd need for this kind of a healing, and it wasn't nearly done. He watched, stricken, as he metaphysically 'dropped' some spark, seeing it go out... such precious stuff, taken from Maria and not adding to Alex's budding store. If Max's own power reserves crashed... how long would any flame remain burning in Alex? How long before his heart and lungs stopped, returning him once again to death's door??

But he wasn't alone with his burden, and help came as suddenly as the mishap had arrived. Energy... balance energy, came streaming into Max from one source, then two more... Liz had seen what needed to be done, and had called on Kyle and Tess to help. Isabel was doing a similar trick with her own healing stone and Alex... the balance energy that the stones worked with wasn't the same thing as 'spark', and couldn't really substitute for it... but by flooding Alex's body with her energy, Isabel was able to keep Alex's spark from dying away as quickly as it would otherwise.

Max just took a deep breath, and returned to his job, not even sparing the attention to attempt to send a thanks back to the people who were supporting him... he couldn't speak aloud without ruining his concentration entirely, and trying to communicate with them using alien powers over the energy streams would be like trying to shout through gale-force winds. They knew how much gratitude he had in his heart... didn't they? Well, if not, he'd tell them after it was all done.

There were a few more rounds of drawing from Maria and pouring into Alex, relatively uneventful. Something... something went wrong with Alex when the process was nearly complete, he and Isabel both seeing it at once. For a second, they both panicked, and if they had given themselves over to the fear, would have lost him. But Max smoothly switched modes, examining Alex's body as if in the diagnostic phase of a typical healing, for he was close enough to full life for his life signs to make sense in terms of that.

That showed Max what had been wrong... some of the blood vessels in Alex's lungs had not been repaired sufficiently, and were straining, about to burst with the full flow of blood he had been directing through them. It was easy enough to repair once he knew the problem, and... and that was it!!

Alex opened his eyes, looked around the pod chamber, and settled on Isabel, kneeling with his head on her lap. "What... what happened?"

Max took just a second to check that Maria was okay, and to rouse her out of a snoozy state that she had slipped into during the process. Her eyes opened too, alive with joy when she saw Alex's face.

"Umm..." Max shook his head. "I'm not sure where to start."

TO BE CONTINUED...


	2. Chapter 2

Part Two

"I... I remember thinking about you," Alex said. His arms were wrapped around Isabel - in fact, she was half sitting in his lap in her relief at having him back, and Michael and Maria were laying back against the wall on the opposite side of the Pod Chamber, arms around each other's shoulders. Max was standing near the broken suspension pods themselves, between Liz and Tess... and the symbolism of that was hard for anybody to miss at this point. Only Kyle was off by himself.

"Um, me?" Isabel asked with surprise a moment later.

"Yeah, not... well, maybe I thought of you at the moment I... you know. I'm not entirely sure. But I was talking about how I got into that mess in the first place... after Liz and Maria left, after the cold Thai food showed up. I was thinking about you, and wondering if I was being too stubborn or too scared or something. Wondered about going down to the Crash to join you guys, but I couldn't make up my mind. So I drove past, and headed East out of town, paying more attention to the teenage angst than the driving... which was, in retrospect, obviously a mistake."

"Big time," Liz replied severely... but there was a twinkle in her eye which made it clear to Alex just how glad she was, to be able to tell him off about that in person -- and as far as that went, Alex pretty much felt the same way.

"Beyond the driving, I don't remember much at all, certainly not an 'Oh god I'm gonna die', life-flashing-before-my-eyes moment. I have an impression of some kind of jerk rattling the car, and a pair of headlights coming straight at me... and then nothing." He sighed and held Izzie tighter. "Not until waking up on the floor there, with most of you guys looking down into my face."

"Maybe that means it really wasn't your time to go," Maria suggested. "That you didn't have your life flash before your eyes."

"Ehh, I'm not sure it works that way," Kyle put in. "Other people who made it have reported the life-flash bit, haven't they?? Or else how did it get started?"

"Hollywood invention, maybe," Isabel muttered. "Well, I don't care... as far as I'm considered, today DEFINITELY wasn't a good day to die... umm, if you know what I mean."

"Surprisingly much," Alex told her teasingly. "Though... it's weird to think of how long I was dead... and then very nearly dead for even longer." Sigh. "I know I've said it several times, but THANKS, *everybody*, for all that you did, especially... well, especially Max and Maria I guess, though it almost seems unfair to single them out just because they had what I most needed."

"Hey, no need to thank me that much, man," Max insisted. "I think I have a vague notion of what it must be like for you, but honestly I had my own reasons for doing it."

"Yeah," Maria chimed in. "You think I was gonna let you bump yourself off for something so stupid, buddy? Not a chance."

There was a ripple of laughter making its way around the chamber for a moment, and then a slightly awkward silence. "Umm... I realize that they're really nothing compared to the problems we had an hour ago," Liz pointed out nervously, "but there are a few things that should probably be brought up at this point. Logistical difficulties?"

"Like, how we allow the authorities to discover that Alex's death wasn't quite what it seemed?" Michael asked.

"Not to mention the coroner's van," Kyle put in.

"Well, probably it makes sense to waste as little time as possible on both scores," Alex put in. "Which means that we'd better head back to town, and we can work out as good a plan as we can on the way." He smiled up at Isabel. "Ride back with me?"

"You'd better believe it." Isabel said, helping him to his feet. "Who else?"

"I, um, I'll ride with Liz and Tess, if that's okay," Max said in a voice that was halfway to a mumble. Both girls seemed more than a little surprised at being so named, but neither of them objected. It was pretty clear from Max's face that he hadn't brought that particular grouping together by accident.

"Do... do you want to drive the van again, Michael?" Maria asked. "I... I can go with Kyle."

"Umm... that's up to Isabel I guess," Michael said.

Izzie blinked. "Yeah, I'll be fine. Go be with Maria."

"You're sure Izzie?" Max asked, and she nodded.

It was a bit of an unsteady procession out of the Pod chamber and down the mountainside... none of them had realized, sitting and resting in relative safety, how much Alex's restoration had taken in terms of an energy cost. But... but there were still very good reasons for getting on the move now - the kind of questions that would be raised if Sheriff Hanson found the County Coroner's van where it was and was waiting there when the eight of them, including Alex, finally emerged was something that nobody wanted to contemplate. They had to take the initiative and set up Alex's discovery on their own terms... somehow.

Isabel made sure that Alex was well strapped in on the shotgun seat of the van before getting behind the driver's seat. This time nobody would be riding in back, because Isabel wanted to make sure that Alex remained within her sight in case he showed any sign of a turn for the worse. "Did... did Liz or Maria mention that they were at my house when you called?" he asked her once she had pulled back onto the uneven road.

"Well, I think that Maria did, and of course you told me... umm, well, you said that they were up at your place not long before you left to go out driving. I guess I'd worked out that they were probably there when I called you by figuring out the timing myself. Why?"

"Just... just thinking about how short life can be, and how little sense some of our decisions would make if we knew that we were going to die tomorrow," Alex said softly.

"I... I guess that you have a unique perspective into that now," Isabel said softly. "You died today, and got it over with."

Alex laughed hollowly. "Yeah. They... I let my friends talk me out of going to meet you tonight... I wanted to come so badly, but they convinced me that having the upper hand in the relationship was something that was really important, and that I needed therefore to play some more mind games with you." He sighed. "I... I am officially DONE with that now. If - if you want to spend just about any time with me, I am probably available, and I don't care if saying that makes me sound needy or something of the sort. I've gotten a second chance to be with you, and I intend to take it if you'll let me. All of... of the things that I said to you around prom just sound a little bit stupid."

"Maybe they're a little bit stupid," Isabel allowed. "And maybe they're also true in a way that's about my stupidities. I... I'm not sure I ever came to terms with how incredible your heart was, and how much I need to have you around in my life, until I had to face the prospect of you not being there in the morning." She choked back a half-sob and tried to get enough control of herself back to continue driving. "So thank you for your little declaration, and I'll try to take my second chance in the same way - to never convince myself that I don't want you just because I can have you, or that you're too good for me and better off with someone else. To not let other stuff get in the way of what you and I are, and what we can be in the future if we make each other a priority."

"Wow." Alex blinked. "It almost felt like we got engaged there, or something."

Isabel laughed out loud. "No... no, if we got engaged, there'd have been a ring being produced from somewhere surprising, and the speech would've been slightly different, and you'd have had to go down on one knee, and there'd have been about a two-minute period where my eyes were watering so bad I could hardly see and I'd have been repeating 'yes, yes yes' disjointedly for most of that time." Alex chuckled. "But I will seriously go to Larry's late-night jewelry and buy you a promise ring tonight, if you'll take it."

"Hey!!" Alex exclaimed, and Isabel had to look away from the road for a minute to make sure that he wasn't bleeding or holding his head in his hands or something. "Isn't that the guy's job?"

"Buying a promise ring... no, I don't think so, not in this day and age." Isabel smirked slightly. "Of course, if you *want* to be the one who buys and gives, I'll give you a one-day head start, more if you can't get out of the hospital anytime soon or something dumb like that." She sighed. "Or we could exchange rings or something."

"Hmm... that sounds pretty fair, I guess," Alex allowed. "Just make mine a cool and masculine ring."

"Of course, sweetie." Isabel reached out and patted his hand and knee reassuringly.

----------

"Okay, what's the deal, Max?" Tess asked as she drove towards town. "'You look like you've got something to say - do youu?' That question was delivered in a very odd, high-pitched tone that was completely unlike her usual way of speaking.

"Okay, what the hell was that?" Liz asked irritably.

"Umm... really sorry, I guess it's perfectly obvious I shouldn't have done it," Tess mumbled, blushing bright red. "Itchy and scratchy voices - from the Simpsons. That's the intro to Homer's big Poochie speech."

"Never realized you knew so much Earth pop culture," Max said, a little admiringly. "Okay, yes I do have something to say, and I think it's important. I feel a little bit like I'm trapped in a corner here. What I've been through today... seeing first-hand how fragile life can be and how advisable it is to live each day like it might be your last... well, bottom line is, I feel like I need to make some changes in my own life." He took a deep breath. "Tess, I can guess what you were probably hoping after we kissed at the prom, but... but I don't really have the feelings for you that you have about me. At this point, I don't think that I ever will. King Zan and Queen Ava have to remain in the past, at least as far as their personal lives are concerned. Some echo of Zan may live on in me, but my life is not his life, and unfortunately, you aren't my true love here on Earth. I... I'm sorry to lower the axe so heavily, but it seemed best to try and make it a clean cut."

"Eesh," Tess grumbled. "Well, no-one could complain that you haven't done that. I... I'm disappointed, but I guess I'm capable of accepting an unpleasant truth when it's shoved directly into my face." A sigh. "Did you have to unleash the humiliation right in front of Liz, though??"

"Umm... as hard as this might be for you to accept... yes, I kind of did." Max sighed. "See, the only thing I can work out is that Liz has been trying to nobly stay away from my heart for both of our sakes because she thinks that we ARE meant to be together in this life." He sighed. "And at this point, it is terribly important for me to convince her otherwise, because that's the one thing that would be most meaningful to me if I were to die tomorrow."

Liz sighed and looked up at both of Max and Tess' faces in the rear view mirror. "Max... Max Maxmax, I give you full points for a nicely dramatic gesture, but what do you want me to say?"

"Say that you'll take me back?" Max offered "Say that our destinies are once again ours to forge and that you want to build yours with me, or at least try to again? We -- we've lost too much time this year already, Liz. I don't want to waste another minute that I can help."

"I... I --" Liz turned to Tess. "You, if Max and I do get back together, you're not gonna do something crazy like... like run away from Roswell, are you?"

"What?" Tess exclaimed. "Umm... that would be a no, I think." She sighed. "True love notwithstanding... I've really got a lot going for me here in Roswell. There's Kyle... frankly, without Max to worry about, I might be able to convince him that we can be more than brother and sister... and if not, well, having a brother like him ain't exactly chopped liver."

"I think you'd be a really good couple, actually," Liz said. "Best of luck."

"If I need your help picking a low-cut top to knock 'im dead with, I'll be knocking on your door," Tess laughed. "And then there's Isabel and Michael... and, well, even this one is a pretty good friend when all of the chips are down." She pointed over at Max with a thumb. Liz laughed.

"I... I'd like to get myself on that list too," Liz blurted out. "And a few others... Maria, Alex. There's... there's been tension between the two of us for a long time, because of the Max thing, and hopefully that can get better now instead of even worse, as long as you don't resent me for taking him away." Liz took a deep breath. "Maybe... just maybe, you transferred almost all of this huge need that you had for attachments, for friends and family figures, onto your obsession with Max, because that was the only outlet that Nasedo seemed to approve of when you were living with him?"

Tess blinked. "Stranger things have been known..."

"Well, we'll be here for you as friends, then, Tess. Sometimes that's even better than landing your dream date." She laughed. "And yes, Max, we can start over again, or something like that. Maybe we'll have to start slow... oh, and there's some things that I need to tell you about that you may, frankly, find quite incredible. But that'll have to wait for later I think."

"Aww," Tess said, and then burst out into giggles.

"Ooh, alright, follow Isabel closely," Max said. "We'll need to pick her up wherever she decides to leave the van." They were heading past the city limits at sixty.

-----------

"You sure you feel all right?" Michael asked.

"Yes, I'm fine," Maria replied, trying to make sure that she wasn't snapping irritably at him because then it would sound like she wasn't really fine. (Well, she was okay except for being irritated at him asking the question so much.) "Why... why do you ask?"

"Well, you keep scratching up beneath your ear there," Michael said softly, while pointing at her neck.

Maria's eyes went a bit wider and she ran her fingers over that area. "I was scratching there? Really?"

"Not quite there," he corrected. "Little further back, beneath your hair."

Maria moved her fingers accordingly, and realized that there was indeed a sore spot there, the kind that she tended to get where she scratched somewhere nervously... though it could have been sore before she started scratching, she supposed. "Huh. Well, I dunno. Maybe I'm feeling a bit out of sorts... after all, it's not every day that you get your life processes copied down to the smallest detail to save your best friend's life. I'm incredibly happy and yet at the same time, a little retroactively stressed out about the fact that something could have gone wrong - and yes, I know that that probably sounds kinduv crazy. But I really don't think that there's anything seriously wrong with me."

Michael smiled. "I'm sorry if I'm bugging you too much about it. If you want me to stop mentioning it... well, I'll try my best."

"I want you to stop mentioning it," Kyle said. "Does that count."

"No, and shut up, Kyle,"

"Hey," Maria protested. "Come on... I mean, no, Kyle doesn't have a right to tell you what you can say and talk about... but you don't have that right over him either. He pitched in just as much as any of us to help Alex... well, maybe not quite as much if you're counting up individual contributions, but he helped out as much as he could, as much as there was a need for him."

"From each according to their abilities?" Kyle cracked. "I may be a Buddhist, but that doesn't make me communist too."

Maria groaned slightly.

----------

"Okay, what the hell is going on here?" Hanson asked. Alex just lay there and didn't answer... he had argued, and Isabel had reluctantly agreed, that if he appeared to be unconscious, or at least too badly confused to answer questions at first, that would seem more believable.

She had also helped him into the driver's seat before leaving... a little fact that Hanson could make whatever he liked of, but seemed to make it less likely that anybody would suspect the others of having been involved in his 'resurrection.' "Alex... Alex?" He felt a pair of strong fingers taking his pulse, and felt an obstruction in front of his mouth and nose... measuring his breath? "Vitals seem steady - Alex, can you hear me? Can you open your eyes??"

Alex hesitated... it seemed a little too cruel to not reply to a query like that honestly. "Yeah," he mumbled blearily, and left his eyes closed. Acting dopey was really not entirely a facade at this point... he was very tired by the evening's events, and was more than a little impatient to be taken someplace where he could lie down and rest. "Just hope they don't run too many tests on me."

"What??"

Oh, no. Alex stayed quiet, hoping that Hanson hadn't really heard what he'd blurted out - or wouldn't know what to make of it if he had.

Things got a little jumbled. He remembered hearing Hanson speak into some sort of radio or telephone, and being carried into another car... into the front seat of Hanson's cruiser possibly. There were a lot of conversations in the emergency room that he wished he could remember more clearly afterwards, but only one short speech stuck out in his mind. "I don't damn well care what I wrote on the original incident report. Look at him! He's breathing and his heart is beating, and his bones are whole. Right now he's alive, and it sounds to me like what he needs is competent medical care to make sure that he STAYS THAT WAY! And find the parents - I want to tell them myself if possible, break the good news gently."

When he opened his eyes and had enough strength to keep them open, he saw his mother's face and heard her gasp. Soon his father hurried into view as well. "It's a miracle," Mrs. Whitman breathed.

Alex was, for a variety of reasons, very disinclined to argue with her.

----------

It was dark in the Valenti house when Kyle and Tess crept in. Once the door had closed behind them, though, a light suddenly switched on in the living room. Jim was sitting in his desk chair.

"Well??" he hissed, the impatience flooding his voice.

Until that moment, Kyle had not consciously thought of the fact that his father didn't know what had happened up in that alien chamber high on the hill... and certainly he hadn't realized quite how much the not-knowing would bother his usually sedate father. "Yeah, it worked!" he exclaimed.

The news seemed to take the breath out of the old ex-sheriff. "Bringing the dead back to life," he whispered, nearly a mumble. "Is there anything that they can't do?"

"It... it's not something that we could... could do every day," Tess muttered apologetically. "Took... took all of us working together, nearly all that some of us had to give, and... and it was only because Alex had gone so recently that it was even..."

"I -- I understand that," Valenti said, holding up a hand to forestall any further objections from Tess. "Even if none of that were true, it's probably not something that you could do again without attracting attention, and danger." He drew in a breath. "If there were ever an alien power that would draw in the crazy nutcases, then this is it. Our little secret, of course, as always." He sighed. "But... but I'm so glad that Alex is... is okay. The word seems like hardly enough."

"Yeah, I know what you mean," Kyle agreed, falling into a sitting position on the couch. "Do... do you think you could do the rounds and find out what people think of... of the sudden mistake, or whatever? You're probably the guy who can talk to Hanson, to his parents, whoever, without attracting much attention."

Jim raised an eyebrow, and Kyle wasn't able to meet his father's gaze, shaking his head slightly, but Mister Valenti got up. "Sure, that makes sense I suppose." He looked over at the living room clock. "It's getting late. The two of you had probably better go to bed, even if you can't sleep. Would seem less suspicious, just in case someone happens to come over." And with that, he went over to the front hall to get a hat and jacket.

Tess smiled a secret smile, retreated to the bedroom, changed out of the clothes that she'd been wearing, and waited there for several minutes very quietly. Once the time was right, she headed across the hall into the bedroom. Kyle spun around... he had been brushing his teeth, as he always did late at night, and Tess forced a blush to her cheeks as well as she could. (Since she was more than a little nervous about the ploy, the color came pretty easily.) Kyle swallowed a little bit of toothpaste and jumped sideways, jamming his hip into the side of the sink, when he got a good look at her - wearing only a skimpy pink bra and panties. "Gee, sorry Kyle - I didn't realize anyone was in here."

"Tess!!" Kyle exclaimed, his voice incredulous. "I... I used the hook and eyelet... and you yanked it STRAIGHT out of the door when you barged in!!" She had indeed, Tess realized, turning around to look at the little bits of metal used to secure the bathroom door from inside. She hadn't noticed, though she HAD opened the door very energetically and noticed a source of strong resistance. Hadn't paid much attention to it at the time. Tess made a bit of a production out of examining the torn eyelet carefully, knowing that in this position, Kyle would have a good look at her scantily clad ass - if he would take it.

Then Tess spun back around quickly - just quickly enough that Kyle couldn't quite look away from that spot in time to avoid getting caught at it. 'Checking out little sis, huh?' Tess thought to herself. 'This can still work.' "Okay, once again - sorry. See you tomorrow morning." And she made a quick exit back to the bedroom.

----------

"Good morning, and how are you feeling this morning?"

Alex opened his eyes and did a quick gut check. "Umm... amazing, actually. Had a kinduv weird dream." He looked up at the doctor who had just come into his room - short, light brown hair, a very reassuring face and a slightly amused face. He was tall, possibly even taller than Alex himself, and looked on the young side - not even quite thirty.

"Well, weird dreams would not surprise me - in fact, very little about you would startle me by now, Alex. Some of the nurses and lab techs have started calling you Mister Impossible."

Uh-oh. This was starting to sound not good. "Lab techs? Did you take me in for tests while I was sleeping?"

"Well, yeah. Sorry man, you were sleeping a long time and there were some things we wanted to make sure of right away. Don't be worried, though, nothing bad came up. The fact that nothing is wrong is a bit of a puzzle, admittedly, considering the wounds that you sustained from the original accident, not to mention the fact that paramedics couldn't bring you back on the scene. Then... well, I'm not going to cross-examine you or anything. The Sheriff or someone working for him will want to take a statement, I'm sure, but you don't need to worry about that yet."

The hell I don't, Alex thought to himself. "Your parents had to leave, but we've been trying to reach them and let them know that you're awake again. In the meantime, there are a few other visitors who've been wanting to see you, and I can't imagine that you wouldn't want to see them too."

"Lemme guess," Alex suggested. "My best friend and my maybe-girlfriend, Liz and Isabel. Or maybe Maria."

"Lucky guy - yeah, I think you got the names right the first time. Oh - one other thing though... I was just curious if you could shed any kind of light on *this.* May I?" And without particularly waiting for explicit permission, the doctor moved up and undid the collar of Alex's hospital gown. Then he held up a mirror so that the boy could more easily see his upper chest just beneath his right collarbone.

There was a faintly glowing handprint there.

DAMN! Alex thought. Everything that they thought of and planned through, and nobody remembered the danger of that one telltale giveaway. Was the Special Unit, or what's left of it, going to find out about him now? The silver handprints made regional news with those kids in Phoenix -- but there wasn't a close link to tie Max into them. This time... okay, the most important thing was to try and downplay it in any way possible.

"Umm... looks like this stuff you can buy off the internet... rub it into skin, and it dissolves in and then makes the skin start to glow. I don't remember tagging myself or getting tagged by it, but... that seems like the logical explanation." He wondered if that would fly.

"Hmm... all right. Well, you've got a date with an MRI machine this afternoon, buddy, but in the meantime take it easy. I'll send the ladies in."

"Wait a second," Alex blurted out. "Sorry, I was just wondering what your name is."

Halfway to the door, he turned and smiled. "Call me Doctor Karlson."

It was maybe a minute before Isabel and Liz rushed into the room. "Are... are you okay?" they blurted out pretty much in unison.

"I... I'm fine," Alex insisted. "How long has it been? Are Maria and Max okay??"

Neither of the girls answered his questions immediately - they were staring at his still-open gown and the clear handprint. "Shit," Liz muttered, and Isabel seemed to nod in complete sympathy to that sentiment. "Who... who's seen it, Alex?"

"I'm not sure," he admitted. "The doctor just asked me about it." Quickly he outlined the cock and bull story he had sold. "But if they had me in for tests while I was asleep, then probably some lab techs might have had a chance. Maybe even my folks."

"I was sitting here with your Mom and Dad for a while," Liz said. "Neither of them mentioned anything like that."

"Should... should I try to get rid of it right now?" Isabel asked. Alex and Liz shared a look.

"Seems worth a try," Liz decided, and Alex nodded. Isabel waved over Alex's shoulder and collar, and the handprint vanished. Alex started to do up his gown again, but Liz stopped him.

"Just in case... I want to see if it comes back." Unhappily Alex yielded to that logic. "To... to answer your questions, it's early evening, nearly twenty-four hours after you first banged yourself up, and Max and Maria are both fine. She's got tables to wait on or she'd have been here too... she blew off half her classes to hang around here today. As far as Max..."

"He shouldn't get too close, just in case," Alex muttered softly. "We really don't want anyone getting suspicious of him being involved in my miraculous recovery." He sighed. "I realize that everyone was thinking of other stuff at the time, but it might have been better for him to leave me with several broken bones and other obvious injuries."

"I don't think he *could*, Alex," Liz pointed out, earnest in the defense of the young man she loved. "It was straining at the limit of Max's control of his healing powers to restore you completely, using Maria's living and healthy body as a rough guide and template. To leave non-critical injuries unhealed, injuries that Maria didn't have to match... that would have been one variable too many to keep track of. We might have lost our one shot to bring you back, trying a fool stunt like that."

"And... and I don't think any of us could have stomached the notion of 're-injuring' you once you were alive again," Isabel pointed out. "In case you were about to point that out."

Alex's stomach flipped a little, itself. "No, no, you're right, that would have been taking things too far, ouch." He sighed softly. "So... what's next?"

The girls traded a look, sitting each of them a bit more firmly on the sides of his hospital bed as they did so. "Well... there's more big news on the 'love among aliens' front," Isabel shared in a whisper. "Max and Liz are back together, like *finally,* and Tess is making a concerted campaign of trying to nab Kyle."

"We're... we're not really reunited or anything yet," Liz protested. "That doesn't happen, in my opinion, until there's a reconciliation date or major smoochage. But yeah, we're kind of pre-committed."

"Well, that's the same boat that Alex and I are in," Isabel pointed out, "and I'm not choosing to wait for the formalities."

"Hey, hey, wait up a second," Alex insisted. "First off, Liz, congratulations for whatever isn't happening yet between you and Max." Liz acknowledged this with a quick bow of her head and a smile. "But what's this about Tess? Didn't Kyle decide at the prom that she was just a sister to him."

"Well, yeah," Liz replied. "But... but Tess is going to try just about every move in the book before letting that be the final word. I mean, they're *not* siblings, and I think they could really be good together if Kyle just wakes up and realizes it."

"After all," Isabel said with a smile, "wouldn't it be likely to change YOUR mind about that sort of thing if a beautiful girl really turned up the charm - and the sex appeal?"

"Umm... okay, yeah, you probably have a point." Alex sighed. "I hope that they let me out of here soon, so that I can get to see some of the hunt myself... just as an amused spectator of course, honey." He patted a reassuring hand on Isabel's hand. "I don't want to gawk at Tess turning up the sex appeal just for sex appeal's sake. Got quite enough of that with you."

"You'd better," she replied, but with a grin.

"Anything of note about Michael?" Alex asked, trying to change the subject. "He's the only one we haven't mentioned I think."

"Not really, same ol' Michael," Isabel reported. "Forgot Maria's six-month anniversary."

"Well, to be fair," Liz put in, "considering how many times they've been off again and on again, I don't really blame Michael for not being able to keep track according to quite the same calendar as Maria does."

"That... that's not the point," Alex argued. "Maria's willing to cut Michael a break when he needs it... these kind of dates are important to Maria, and if Michael needs some help figuring out which days Maria expects him to make a big deal out of, he could ASK her."

"Yeah... but then his pride gets in the way of that," Liz commented.

----------

"Hey." Max looked up from the menu to see Maria smiling at him.

"Just a cherry coke," he said softly.

"Sure." Maria nodded, but didn't head off to go get it from behind the Crashdown counter. "So... the big night, you and Liz together again. You look very sharp by the way." Max smiled nervously - he had actually tried on nearly a dozen different outfits, which was definitely more Isabel's kind of thing to do than his - and had ended up in a light blue button-down shirt with darker blue pants and black shoes. "Where are you taking her?"

"Thought I'd try the new seafood place," Max said with a shrug. "We've already been everywhere else."

"Well, that's okay I guess," Maria admitted. "Wouldn't get me to eat fish on a big night like this, but Liz likes it a lot really." She sighed. "Good luck."

"Thanks," Max answered, wondering how long Maria was going to stand there and talk at him. But, somewhat to his surprise, she actually went off to pick up someone else's order.

A few minutes after Max's cherry coke arrived, Liz walked through the kitchen door, wearing a little black dress that took Max's breath away. Her hair was down and loose, slightly curled so that it flew everywhere enticingly, like the way she'd worn it at prom. Was it really only a little more than a week since prom? So much had happened. In fact, for a few seconds Max wondered if Liz was wearing her prom dress again, since she'd been in black then too, but no, the shoulder straps were slightly different. Was it another new dress?? She was kind of spoiling him to be spending so much money on fancy clothes.

He stood up from the booth as she came near. "You look gorgeous... and on time too."

Liz giggled. "Thanks, you're very dashing yourself this fine evening." A pause. "Do you want to finish your drink, or..."

"No, no," Max insisted. "Not really thirsty- just ordered it to have something to do while I waited - and because it reminded me of you." Liz let out a little 'aw' sound, which wasn't what Max had intended, but he wasn't at all disappointed. "You ready to go?"

"Sure." Liz said. As they stepped towards the front door of the cafe, Isabel came in, followed by Alex who had been holding the door open for her. There was quite a bit of excitement and to-do over that... this was Alex's first opportunity to get away from supervision both medical and parental, so Maria made a big fuss over him, and Isabel hugged Liz and they both wished each other the best of luck, and Kyle showed up too before that commotion was done, and Alex hugged or shook the hand of everyone who had helped him, and gave Kyle a murmured message to take back to his father. Finally Max and Liz headed out to the Jeep.

"Umm... might as well ask," Max said as they took their seats. "I... I love the dress - is it new? I don't think I've ever seen you wearing anything like it, though it's kinduv like your prom gown."

Liz giggled. "Um... that was Isabel's idea, actually... call it something old made new."

For a second Max was just confused - and then his eyes went wide. "You mean Isabel rearranged the prom dress into this?"

"Yeah," Liz nodded. "Into something I could wear a little bit more often. Saves a little cash that way."

"Not a bad idea, actually," Max admitted as he pulled out. "I wonder if she does that with her own wardrobe. Considering the amount of money she still spends at the mall for new clothes..."

Liz laughed, and the sound rang like a bell in Max's soul. He'd been waiting too long for this night.

Back inside the cafe, Alex tried to wave Maria over to take their orders, but she was deep in conversation with Kyle about something and not paying any attention to them. "Don't... don't worry about it, Alex," Isabel insisted. "The longer it takes her to come, the more time that we have to just sit here together and talk. Isn't that a good thing?"

Alex considered it, and smiled. "I like the way you think, Isabel Evans." And he sighed. "Everything seems so weird, just knowing that... well, I kind of feel like I'm on a second chance... that if you guys hadn't been able to pull everything off just right, I wouldn't have even been here." He sighed. "And I wonder..."

"No, no, Alex," Isabel said, reaching out to hold his hands. "Don't... don't even say that - I couldn't bear it."

Alex seemed confused by that. "You couldn't??"

"Umm..." Now Isabel was befuddled too. "Were... weren't you about to say something about, about what I might have been doing tonight if... if you were gone?" It was like pulling teeth to admit the thing that she hadn't wanted him to say, but now that seemed to be the only way of resolving the mutual confusion.

"Oh, no, baby, no!" Alex exclaimed, a little horrified. "I... well, I probably would never say something like that - I certainly hadn't been thinking it just now." He dropped his voice even lower. "I was just saying that I wondered if anybody else here knew about the accident and everything. I mean, besides the regular suspects."

"Ohh." Isabel looked around, considering the other diners. Nobody was paying any attention to them, but that might have been a front - Isabel hadn't been particularly quiet with her own reaction to the misunderstanding. "Well, maybe. Don't worry about that though."

"Alright." So Alex started telling her about this computerized music system that he was interested in trying to get a look at... it was very expensive, but the local junior college would be getting one in for the summer term, and his father had a good friend in the department there.

"Ohmigawd," Maria breathed, looking at the impressively large bundle of presents that Michael had managed to produce seemingly out of nowhere, sitting in the middle of the back room of the Crashdown. A gigantic bunch of flowers, mostly pink tulips - her favorites - was the only thing that wasn't wrapped up.

"Well, come on, girl," he said with a quirky smile. "You don't have much of a break before the next orders are up - so start tearing off paper!" Maria didn't need to be told twice. In fairly short order she had identified a small but reasonably expensive package of Swiss chocolate candy treats, a bottle of her favorite (and lately hard-to-find) scented body lotion, a pretty white dress, nearly ankle-length in silky fabric... (was it silk? Not quite, but mostly, according to the label.) And, inside the smallest box was a silver bracelet, with a thin chain connecting two hearts... her favorite of all the gifts.

"Come on, this is... this is way too much - you have to take some of it back," she said, awed by the plenty all around her.

"If I really needed the money, you can believe that I'd take you up on that," Michael said, and Maria laughed, remembering the true story behind the pearl earrings that he'd 'given' her for Christmas. "But no. I think this is appropriate to show you how I feel about you, and to mark the occasion of tonight."

"Tonight?" Maria blinked. "Okay, I give, just what is tonight?"

"Tonight is three months since you 'put out there' that we were together again, following my sister in the Jetta." Maria's eyes widened. "You didn't want me to say anything, just to know that the only reason you'd do something so nuts is if we were dating again." And he stepped up and kissed her. "I want to always be dating you - well, until we decide that we want to be something further along that trumps mere 'dating', and I hope that you'll always be willing to go a little nuts over me."

"Ohh..." Maria's heart melted and her knees buckled a little - but Michael caught her, and she used that as a pretext to kiss him.

Back out in the dining room, Isabel gasped as the door opened, and Tess walked in, chatting with Paul Adams, the star of the Roswell High basketball team, and something of a rival of Kyle's. The two of them seemed very friendly as they got into a booth... not physically affectionate, or at least not yet. But Tess was wearing a flirty miniskirt, (her blouse was a little more tame,) and laughing every so often. For a second, the scene seemed horribly out of place, and then Alex made the connection.

"Ooh, she's trying to make Kyle jealous," he whispered, nearly in Isabel's ear. She nodded... whether she'd already figured that out was hard to read from her face. "Knew that he'd be here... just trying to make him see her as a pretty and desirable girl without going so far as to really upset him or make him think he's lost his chance."

"Yeah," Isabel muttered back. "Trying to get him to see that he's not upset in a brotherly way... that he wishes he could be in Paul's shoes. It's still a slightly dangerous tactic, but I wish her luck."

Tess didn't spend long in Paul's booth - she went over to the table where Kyle was sitting on the other side of the room. As much as Alex and Isabel strained to hear the conversation there, they couldn't make out much more than the fact that Tess was trying to pretend that nothing was unusual about the way she'd shown up, and Kyle was in a fairly untalkative funk.

"Hi, can I take your order?" Cindy Watson said, stepping up to Alex and Isabel's table.

"Um, what happened to Maria?" Isabel asked.

"Well... she asked me to cover for her until Janice got here." Cindy sighed long-sufferingly. Alex and Isabel shot a curious look at each other.

"Okay, I'll have the Will smith and a side of Saturn rings," Isabel said with a smile. Alex got a warp wrap and some fixings.

"Now, next topic," Isabel said once Cindy was gone again. "Two nights ago, there was some discussion of promise rings, while feelings were running high. Gut check time - do we really mean it now?"

Alex blinked at her. "Umm... refresh my memory?" Isabel's face fell and she took a long moment trying to figure out where to start. "Sorry... sorry, I was just joking and it probably wasn't the right time for it," Alex continued. "I remember what we said PERFECTLY, and yes, I want to promise my heart to you, Isabel. Did you really have any doubts?"

Izzie grinned, and it was like a beam of light spreading around the dining room - in Alex's eyes at least. "I... I was trying not to. The little voice inside of me that... well, I guess I should listen to that particular little voice more often now, instead of the louder doubting rabble-rousers." She sighed. "Okay... do you want to do it tonight? Just head right over to Larry's?"

"Hmm..." Alex thought about that. "It might be nice to go somewhere nicer, but on the other hand... we don't need to spend a lot on each other, money that can be put to other things, right?" Isabel nodded eagerly. "And it'd be nice to make things official tonight. I'm in."

Isabel leaned over the table to seal the deal with a kiss.

TO BE CONTINUED...


	3. Chapter 3

Part Three

"Ohh, mmm..." Liz groaned softly in response to Max's non-articulated mumbles. "I... I can hardly believe that we got back together like this... all because Alex got himself into a car crash and died."

Even that last sentence wasn't nearly as clear as it was printed, because Max was pretty much talking through Liz's passionate kisses. But she knew what he meant, and backed off about one inch so that they could talk more easily. After the restaurant, Max had driven them out into the desert and parked in the middle of nowhere.

"It... it's pretty incredible," Liz agreed.

"And somehow I think nothing will ever come between us again," Max continued, reaching out to softly stroke the side of Liz's face, as if reassuring himself that she was still there.

"I... I hope so, Max, I really do." Max noticed the worried tone in Liz's voice, and frowned himself, thinking of the incredible things she had told him just half an hour ago... after they'd left town and before the make out session had begun. About a time travelling alien from the future, and horrible disaster looming, and desperate machinations to make Max 'fall out of love' with Liz, (that had only half worked.) But then Liz grinned, which put Max at ease because he really didn't want to talk about the reasons that they had been kept apart, right now.

"I... I guess we've got a chance to make some plans, then, on the relatively short term," Max pointed out. "Summer will be coming soon, the summer before our Senior Year, and... and somehow it seems like a waste to spend most of the time off school just working. Admittedly, we don't have to work very far apart at least - I'd just be across the street and could come in to see you at lunchtime, but still..."

"Yeah, I think I know what you mean," Liz replied. "Though on the other hand... senior year means that college will be coming, not far behind, and any money that either of us can earn for college will definitely be good. But we can make time for each other too... plan a few really cool things to do. There'll be time - as long as we don't let it slip away from us."

Max smiled at that. "Any ideas?"

Liz thought about it. "We could go to the beach... a real beach by an ocean. Umm... Texas gulf is probably the closest. There's someplace there, a specific town, but I can't remember the name of it."

"The gulf of Mexico is not technically an ocean," Max pointed out, but he was grinning just as widely as she was.

"Well, it's darn near close enough," Liz shot back. "It's a frankly huge body of salt water, with tides and etcetera. I think it might actually count as part of the Atlantic Ocean, if not an ocean unto itself. I just meant, not some little riverside beach or lake around here."

"Hmm... well, it has potential, though sub-tropical Texas is probably going to be scorching hot already."

Liz raised an eyebrow. "We could go up into the Rocky mountains somewhere, if you wanna cool off."

"Ehh, I'm just as comfortable keeping things hot with you," Max teased her, "but that's in the maybe pile too. Heck, maybe we should go back to Vegas." Liz's eyes went wide. "Not for anything matrimonial, at least, not yet," he qualified. "But we had fun the last time, right?"

"Obviously we've got options," Liz replied. "But frankly... I dunno about making many summer plans until I've taken most of my finals." She laughed softly. "And I don't really want to think much about finals tonight, while I'm here alone with you." She leaned in and kissed him, her lips hot but sweet.

"Works for me," Max mumbled once he had a chance to breathe, and held her tighter.

A long time later, the two young lovers rebuttoned their shirts and got ready to return home to Roswell. "What's... is something wrong?" Max asked as under his patient working of the controls, the Jeep slowly made its way back to the highway.

"Umm... what? There's nothing wrong."

"Something's on your mind at least," Max said softly. "Something bothersome, at least. I know you well enough to tell that at least by now."

Liz forced a shaky smile. "Alex - that handprint, and the doctor who asked him about it. All of the other people at the hospital who saw it, come to that. What - what if, if it's about to all start over again??"

Max reached out to hold her hand in his for a second. He thought about stopping again, before they actually got onto the highway, but... what the heck - he coasted to a stop and put the parking brake on. "If there's a problem, we'll deal with it, but it WON'T be as bad... as bad as it was with Pierce. We know more now, we're stronger, and anybody who still remembers about silver handprints has to be weaker. It'll be okay."

Liz smiled up at him. "Now how did you know that would be the right thing to say?"

"I... I think I didn't," Max admitted with a shrug. "But I'm glad if it made you feel better."

He finally turned onto the highway, heading back to town.

----------

"Hmm... what do you think of this one?" Alex asked, pointing out a slender golden band with a small square-cut crystal mounted on it. Isabel hmmed for a long moment. "Not it, huh??"

Isabel made an embarrassed face. "I... I'm probably being too picky," she began. "This ring is lovely... just like three or four of the others have been--"

"That's not good enough," Alex said with a determined smile. "Not for *your* ring. We agreed to look together, we agreed that you'd know, without a doubt, when you saw the ring that you were meant to have." Isabel smiled slightly herself. "And I don't mean to stop looking until we find it... or at least not until we've looked at every promise ring available for sale in town." He paused, and then just at about the same time that Isabel was about to say something, added "...and take a trip into Albuquerque, as far as that goes, to look at two score rings THERE."

Izzie raised an eyebrow. "Why two score?"

"Ehh... it just seemed to sound right - forty rings." He winked at that. Isabel tried to come up with an appreciative laugh, but it mostly fell flat. "Okay, umm... how about this one?" He reached blindly for something new that the jewelry store attendant had just set out for them, and passed it over to Isabel.

Isabel caught her breath. For a long moment she was torn between amazed delight, and a voice inside her head urging her to not make a big deal and possibly get Alex's hopes up. Finally she breathed... "It's lovely."

Alex smiled. "Really??" The band was another thin gold one, but not as plain as the last ring - or the one before that. The detail work seemed to spiral around the ring in a series of smaller rings, though the ridges didn't actually go all the way around to the inner surface - presumably so that they wouldn't chafe the ladies' delicate skin. And the stone mounted on this ring was red and nearly circular in shape, a dark red that glinted with an intense radiance Isabel found lovely.

"What's the gem?" Alex asked. "It can't be a real ruby... or if it is, my funds won't cover it."

"I thought I was the gem here," Isabel teased him, and then looked at the box that the ring had come with. "Red Garnet. Yeah, I've heard that that isn't considered a rare, precious stone itself. This one is gorgeous, though, isn't it??"

"I'd be hard pressed to disagree," Alex said with a slow smile. "For ever and always, I've loved the way you look with red." Isabel laughed, caught by surprise at the memory he had refreshed in her mind: the heat wave, the party in the old soap factory... and that amazing dream that had first shown her the depths of Alex's incredible heart.

"Okay, that just makes it official," Isabel decided, taking the ring out and putting it on her finger. "Alex, pay the man."

"First things first," he reminded her, putting his arms around her sleek and strong figure. They stared into each other's eyes for a long moment, and then his lips met hers in a fiery kiss.

Eventually the Larry's clerk cleared his throat loud enough to remind the two teenagers that they were still in public, and each paid for the other's ring and left the store. "So... when do you have to be home?" Isabel asked, admiring the way the tiny garnet sparkled on her finger.

"Oh, not for about an hour yet." Alex grinned. "Now, whatever could we think of to occupy us for about that long??"

Izzie smiled. "Well... admittedly we could just find some deserted road or lover's lane and smooch up a storm, but... well, actually, we'd better make sure to save some time for that. Umm... I dunno, this once I'd like to try to squeeze in something a little bit more... memorable? Not that kissing you is something I'm ever likely to forget, but you know..."

"Yeah, I get the point," Alex assured her. "Umm... star watching out at the Frazier woods campsite??" His face creased slightly in thought. "Can we get up there, and back, in good enough time to make it worthwhile tonight? We could always go on the weekend or something."

Isabel thought about the driving time into Frazier woods and her face fell. "You know that I'd love to... and I'd urge you to blow off curfew, except that I really wouldn't want your parents to worry any more at a time like this." She took a deep breath. "Speaking of your parents - I have something I've been meaning to mention about them."

Alex blinked in surprise, completely distracted from the search for a late-evening activity. "What... what's that?"

"Have... have you thought about telling your parents the truth? About what happened to you? About... well, about me and the others??"

Alex's jaw dropped and he nearly tripped over the sidewalk curb while in the process of stepping up onto it. "Umm... well, sure, at least a little bit. Never that seriously... so are *you* seriously trying to tell me that you think it'd be okay? Or is this just a way of trying to make sure that I DON'T do it??"

Isabel instantly seemed so hurt and upset by the last question that Alex wished he could have withdrawn it. "I... I don't ever want to play games like that with you, Alex. I... I admit that the way I phrased the question was a little vague, so let me clarify it. Yes, I want you to seriously think about telling your parents. I can't tell you whether it's a good idea or not, but if you want to, I'm on your side, and I'll do my best to convince Max and Michael if you think that you need their approval first." She considered that. "Actually, I'd strongly suggest running it by them - it *is* their secret too, after all."

"But... but why?" Alex asked. "Unless I've very badly missed something, you and Max haven't even told YOUR folks yet."

"And I still think about doing that every day," she muttered softly, her eyelids seeming to tremble. Alex instinctively spread his arms around her again, not a passionate embrace like back at the jewelry store, but a hug of comfort. "Still... you have a very good reason for explaining things that I don't yet... if mom and dad had heard that I'd died, and then Max brought *me* back, you had better believe that I would be telling them the whole truth as soon as I could."

Alex smiled slightly. "Well, thanks, I guess. I... I dunno, I'm actually not so sure whether the whole truth would bring them much peace of mind."

"Oh... I guess I hadn't thought of it like that," Isabel admitted. "Well, bear it in mind." She took a deep breath, and then forged ahead. "A long time ago, after Max ran his car into a horse, I stubbornly insisted to myself that I couldn't take a chance on you - that letting you know the truth about me would ruin everything. But... but instead, that was the beginning. Trying to stop this information from getting to you could have been the biggest mistake I ever made in my life. And so I guess I'm... I'm trying to make up for that foolishness by being an advocate of telling trusted loved ones - not just yours, but them most of all."

"Just because trying to keep it from me was a mistake - I'll grant that, doesn't mean that telling other people is a good idea," Alex told her softly. "'The moral of the story' won't always point you the right way, here in the real world - not unless it's really based on something steadier than an intuitive generalization. Things get really complicated and there's often no right answer... and when there is one, rules of thumb don't always show you which one it is."

"I know, sweetie." Isabel kissed Alex on the cheek. "But I still believe that this is the right stand to take." She paused. "Okay, come on - we're wasting your time before check-in."

"Somehow, out of all the words we could use to describe that conversation, one that would never ever make the list would be 'waste'," Alex replied. "But okay - what do you want to do?"

Isabel thought about it for a moment. "Find some isolated lover's lane and make out." Alex laughed. "We can leave the meaningful memories for some other day... they all seem to take too long. I want to get some face-sucking time in with my Promised One... and come on, like the ring shopping wasn't a meaningful memory?"

"I guess I have to agree with that," Alex agreed. "Open field near the edge of the ravine?"

"Yeah, guess that's closest," Isabel said after a moment. "Come on!" And she hurried towards where his car was parked.

----------

Tess called out from around the corner while Kyle was watching an action-comedy movie on channel 4. "Hey, mind if I join you??"

"Umm, sure." At first, he didn't suspect anything. After a few seconds, Kyle remembered how Tess had been acting odd for the past day or two, and wondered if she was going to pull some new stunt. And then she stepped into view.

She was wet. Not quite dripping wet, but he could see little droplets of water moving slowly down patches of bare skin. Pink, glowing, freshly scrubbed and steamed bare skin, her hair falling in a sexy disarrayed cascade behind her, the dampness of it smoothing the curls out into only the gentlest of waves, the tips of her locks clinging to the damp skin of her shoulders. She was wearing... (Kyle gulped.) She wasn't wearing anything other than a pink bath towel, as far as he could see, and she wasn't even holding that in quite the right fashion as to cover herself up as modestly as possible using it. Kyle was speechless as she crossed in front of him and sat down next to him on the old couch. And then, having been struck silent as she entered the room, he couldn't seem to come up with a good conversation opener at this point. 'Excuse me, I couldn't help but notice that you're half naked!' No, Kyle didn't think that he could pull off a sentence like that.

He stared fixedly at the television for a long time, until the usual shills for beer, hamburgers, and big four-wheel trucks interrupted a tense hostage crisis. Then, Kyle couldn't resist sneaking a glimpse at the girl on the other side of the couch - Tess had curled up so that her legs were exposed nearly up to the curve of her hip, (Oh, Buddha on a bicycle, those legs!!) though anything completely x-rated was hidden from him by the way her thighs were angled. Further up, his eyes lingered for a moment on the smooth skin of one of Tess' arms, and then he realized that the top of the towel was slipping down, (or had been gently nudged down, ) so that an irresistible glimpse of the curve of her chest was visible...

And then, Kyle heard it. Not quite a gasp, not quite a sigh, but... an exhalation. Not any ordinary sound of breathing, quite, but the kind of sound that he knew he made when he'd been waiting for something, half holding his breath, and then it happened and he relaxed slightly. Tess... she still didn't seem to be looking at him, in fact her gaze was riveted on some kind of a dancing lizard who was attempting to explain how much they needed to buy into a mutual fund, but she HAD to know that he was looking at her. Maybe it was something to do with her powers, or maybe she was able to make out just enough from his reflection in the screen.

In any event, Kyle had had enough of the games. "What's the deal, Tess?" Reaching out blindly, he grabbed the remote from behind him, accidentally changing the channel to a loud R&B music video, then muting it, and after a second's hesitation turning the picture, and the entire unit, off. "Because Max rejected you, you want to tease me and reassure yourself that you're still all that?? Well... I can't deny that you're sexy, but this whole thing is just too weird now, and you'd better knock it off!!"

Tess turned to face him... made a gesture like she was about to pull the towel completely away from her breasts, but didn't follow through on it. "No, Kyle... that -- that's not all that it is, and I'm sorry if I've been going about this like a brazen hussy - it's kind of what I tend to fall back on when I'm desperate." She looked down, blushing. "I... I'm not just trying to tease you. I really - I really want to be with you, and I thought that if I showed off a bit, maybe I could awaken some feelings that are anything but big-brotherly."

Kyle's mouth dropped. "So, what, you wanna make this a real thing??"

"Well, yeah, dumbass! Err... or something slightly less mean." Kyle chuckled slightly. "Max... him picking Liz did throw me for a loop, but in a weird way - I felt relieved. Grateful that this destiny thing was once and for all completely outta my hands, that I didn't need to worry about living up to the lady I used to be any more, because it was never gonna happen with Max and me." She took a deep breath.

"And the very next thought I had was of you, Kyle. I... I didn't fight for something more at Prom, when you said I was only like a sister to you... because my head was still spun with all of that Max stuff, and I was obsessing over him so badly I didn't realize what was slipping away. Maybe... maybe it's better that I didn't raise the issue just at that point." She slid slightly closer to him, which had the side effect of pushing her butt entirely off the edge of the towel - Kyle tried not to stare down in that direction - he didn't really think she was doing that on purpose, and telling her about it seemed somehow inappropriate to the moment.

"If... if you're sure that psychologically you're my big brother and friend, and could never picture yourself in... in another role," and here Tess reached out to hold Kyle's hand in her own, "then I will absolutely drop the campaign. No sense in humiliating either of us. But... but I think that maybe it's something different." She paused. "You... you told me about Malamute, and what he'd told you right before you punched him out. Maybe... maybe you were just getting a little confused by the notion of caring so much personally about someone you were out on a date with." She smiled hopefully. "Seeing her not *just* as a sex object but a complete woman?"

Kyle opened his mouth to make a sarcastic reply, realized he didn't have one ready, groped for something witty... and then the possibility that Tess was more or less right started to sink in. He looked over at her - a girl that he loved as dearly as he would have loved a sister, without doubt, but also a best friend, and a sexy girl who he was tremendously attracted to, all at once. Was it possible that he had been messed up enough to have simply not been able to see all that at once, on prom night??

"Okay... I, um, well..." Kyle muttered, frustrated at his inability to put a coherent thought into words, but he was able to reach out and touch Tess' hand with his, and somehow that almost seemed to say everything that needed to be said. "There's a strong possibility that you're right there."

Tess smiled slightly. "So... so what do we do about it?"

"You go put some more clothes on," Kyle laughed, "come back here and we watch the movie together. There's no rush - everything will sort itself out in the end."

Tess blinked, then cocked her head, considering the idea. Apparently she decided she liked it. "Alright, Buddha boy."

When Tess returned, she was dryer, and wearing a comfy dressing gown, a cut-off t-shirt, and a pair of shorts - which was still a distracting enough ensemble to keep Kyle from following the movie entirely, but maybe that was the point.

---------

"Are... are you sure that this is a good idea?" Alex said to Isabel. "You said that the doctor saw you at the hospital."

"Yeah... so?" She looked up and smiled just slightly. "If you'd met me in a situation like that, would you be particularly surprised if I showed up in one of your dreams?"

Alex opened his mouth to say something - and then did a double take. "Well, maybe not... depending on the kind of dream."

Isabel looked down the room at Liz, who was sitting at the foot of her bed, and Max, who had drawn up a chair near Liz. "Liz, what do you think?"

"If you're willing then go for it," Liz said. "It's the best way to get the kind of information we need." Isabel smiled, touched the picture that they had acquired of Alex's doctor, and he saw that odd rippling effect on the photo that indicated, apparently, that her powers were taking effect. Izzie's eyes closed and she sank into a deep trance, breathing softly and regularly, not making any other sound. Max fidgeted nervously and Liz put a hand on his knee to reassure him.

"How was that movie?" Alex asked the two of them, trying to keep his voice casual. "Isabel said that she wanted to see it too." Max and Liz had been on their third date since getting back together, earlier that evening, dinner and a movie.

"Pretty good," Max said. "Not as much of a chick flick as I'd thought it might be."

Liz laughed. "And Isabel will *love* it, especially if she sees it with you." Alex smiled, and the small thread of conversation faded out there, all three friends waiting for Isabel to return from her dream walk.

It didn't take that long, but the minutes seemed to crawl by in awkward silence. Finally Isabel's eyes blinked open and she smiled. "He's... he's all right, he doesn't suspect anything or have any connection to the government or the Special Unit," she reported, hugging Alex with sheer delight. "I... I even showed him the handprint in the dream again - it was a risk, I know - but his only reaction was confusion. He didn't have any clue what it meant."

"Alright," Alex said slowly. "But... but we can't run this same trick on everybody in the hospital who might have seen the mark, can we? We don't even know the names or faces of most of them."

"We... we can worry about that another time," Max said, a cautiously hopeful expression on his handsome features. "Doctor K was the biggest risk of being a Special Unit leak - or whatever replaced the Special Unit when Nasedo eighty-sixed it." Alex remembered watching an impostor Daniel Pierce testifying in front of a congressional committee, on CSPAN in the back of the cafe. "We've made progress tonight, even if we're not finished yet."

"Alright, well, I am going to go downstairs and make some cocoa, since I'm already in my pajamas," Isabel said with a teasing smile. "Max, think you can give my man a lift home??"

"Definitely, sure," Max agreed. "Liz, I assume I'm dropping you off at your place too? It's pretty late."

"Yeah. Remember tomorrow."

"I'm not about to forget anytime soon."

And the four friends left Isabel's bedroom together.

-----------

"Oh, Michael, it's so beautiful," Maria looked up at the stunning waterfall formed as a channel of water plunged off a 15-storey cliff top. "How - how does it get up there in the first place."

"I, I'm not sure," Michael admitted. "Maybe snow deposits or something. High on some of these mesas it's not as hot as it is down on the desert floor - not in the winter anyway."

"Cool," Maria decoded, and stepped half behind Michael, wrapping her arms tight around his chest. "I... I don't know if this is weird, but I seem to wake up every morning lately just thankful that I didn't... didn't lose you. Like we almost lost Alex."

"Hmm... it's slightly unusual, but I'm not complaining," Michael replied in a bit of a low drawl. "Would think you might have also been thankful that you didn't really lose HIM."

"Well, yeah, that too, of course," Maria admitted with a smile. "But... I dunno, maybe it's made me think about what really matters and how quickly everything can change. It *could* have been you - especially the way you ride that bike of yours sometimes, though that's not really the point - and... and if we couldn't get Max to you in time, or if something went wrong with the 'Candle' procedure... it could be for keeps. I, I just... I don't want that to happen for a very long time, if ever."

"Me neither, babe," Michael agreed. "So - did you know about this Future Max business and hold out on me?"

"Umm... yeah, actually... since, err, since Thanksgiving or so," she admitted, jumping slightly in surprise, which actually made their bodies move against each other in a nice way, once the wave of shock was over. "She - Liz made me swear to secrecy, and..."

"Hey, I'm not really upset," Michael insisted. "It's crazy news and I can understand neither of you wanting it to spread too far too fast." He sighed contentedly. "Frankly, I'm just pleased that Max didn't really need to hook up with Tess to keep her in town. She's good company, but not when she gets all weird and obsessive about destiny."

Maria laughed. "Yeah. I really hope that she and Kyle get something sorted out." Tess had told the other girls about her campaign of seduction, and the somewhat ambiguous agreement that had ended it, after school the next afternoon over ice cream cones. "So, what now?"

"Right now, we just stay here and enjoy the beauty of this moment until it's become boring for both of us," Michael said. "Maybe, umm, kiss a little in the back seat of your car before going home." Maria smiled at the thought. "However, there's one big question that's going to have to be settled before too long."

"Oh, no... what??" Maria groaned. "I thought we'd settled everything."

"Not quite." Michael grinned. "What are we going to do to celebrate the coming of summer vacation??"

"Oh, that." Maria giggled. "Well, it's a question that needs to be faced - you're right about that, but not quite yet." She spun around a little and then took Michael's hand in hers. "Just let me know when boredom starts to make inroads."

----------

"Hmm... how about this one?" Max pulled something out of the shelf and showed its cover to Liz.

"No, no, not that one," she groaned, and Max put the fantasy paperback in the space where he'd found it. "But actually... if you can spot 'The court of the crystal king,' that's a nice one." Max shuffled back over the titles that he'd already scanned, certain that the title Liz had just mentioned sounded familiar. "Okay, yeah, there you've got it." She sighed slightly. "Are you sure that you don't want to do ANYTHING else with this time together than listening to me read to you?"

Max laughed slightly. "Umm... yes. There's time, and there'll be other things that we do together, I won't doubt, but it seems like something that I think I'll really like." He paused. "Unless you're changing your mind?"

"No, no... of course not. I'd love to share this with you - I guess it just seemed a bit silly." She took the book from him, riffled through it, and sat down on her desk chair as Max took up space on her bed. "Chapter one - novitia..."

The court of the Crystal king got no further that evening, because there was suddenly a knock on Liz's balcony window. "Um, come in!" she called, and then blinked as all of their friends crawled in through the opened window, Kyle and Michael carrying an oddly heavy object between them. "What's that?"

"Something that I should probably have told you about a long time ago," Tess admitted, blushing. "Nasedo had it shipped back to Roswell before he died, in the deepest secrecy. It's a decoder and transceiver unit for the old Special Unit communication channels. They were still active last time I checked, in the fall - old special unit operatives staying in touch with each other, just in case. I - I figured that we could try listening in to see if they've caught wind of the new handprint."

"Wow..." Max breathed. "Is there any chance that they can detect that we're monitoring them using this?"

"I... I don't think so - he'd have warned me about that if he knew, and Ed made it his business to learn everything he could about the Special Unit's secrets during the months that he was Pierce," Tess replied.

"Okay cool, thanks," Liz said, impulsively hugging Tess in thanks, and Isabel repeated the gesture to show her own gratitude. "How do we get it hooked up?"

The only thing that ex-Special Unit operatives were messaging each other about was whether 'Survivor' was going to be any good.

THE END!


End file.
